Girl Missing Read Online Free PDF

okay. Seeing as you’re official and all.”
    They headed to the elevators. The hospital looked the same as Kat remembered it, dingy linoleum floors, halls painted a bizarre aqua color, gurneys shoved up against the walls. Through the doorway on the right was the cafeteria, with its echoes of clinking dishes and scraping chairs. On the overhead paging system, a bored voice read out a list of doctors’ names and extension numbers. Dr. Dietz moved like a sleepwalker in tennis shoes.
    “I see the place hasn’t changed any,” said Kat.
    “Did you used to work here?”
    “No. I did my residency over at St. Luke’s. But I knew a patient here. A relative.”
    He laughed. “I’m not sure I’d want any of my relatives here.”
    “Didn’t matter to her. She didn’t know where she was, anyway.”
    They stepped into the staff elevator and crowded in beside nurses and orderlies. Everyone stared straight ahead, as though mesmerized by the changing floor numbers.
    “So are you from the city?” asked Dietz.
    “A native. And you?”
    “Cleveland. I’m going back.”
    “Don’t like it here?”
    “Let’s put it this way. Compared with this town, Cleveland is the Garden of Eden.”
    They got off on the third floor and headed into intensive care.
    The unit was set up like a giant stable, with stalls marked out by curtains. Only two beds were empty, Kat noted; not much preparation for an unexpected disaster. And there was a full moon. That was always a harbinger of a busy night.
    The patient was in bed thirteen. Only comatose patients went into that bed, Dietz said. Why scare some conscious patient? When you’re fighting for your life, even dumb superstitions take on frightening significance.
    The man’s name was Nicos Biagi. He was a husky fellow, about twenty, with biceps and pectorals that had obviously done time in the weight rooms. There were seven tubes snaking out of various parts of his body—a grim prognostic indicator. He lay utterly flaccid. According to the chart, he was unresponsive to even the most intense of stimuli.
    “Twenty-four hours and not a twitch,” said the nurse. “Plus, we’re having trouble stabilizing his pressure. It goes haywire on us, shoots up, then bottoms out. I’m going crazy, juggling all these meds.”
    Kat flipped through the chart, quickly deciphering the hurried notes of the ICU resident. The patient had been found unconscious in his car, parked outside his parents’ apartment. He’d been sprawled on the front seat. Beside him on the floor had been his kit: a tourniquet, syringe and needle, spoon, and cigarette lighter. Somehow, during the frantic rush to stabilize the patient and transport him to the ER, the EMTshad lost track of the syringe. They thought the family might have it; the family claimed the EMTs had it. The police said they’d never even seen it. In any event, the blood toxicology screen would provide the answers.
    At least, it should.
    They’d found out a few things. A 0.13 ethanol level proved the man was legally drunk. Also, he’d been pumped full of steroids—something Kat could have guessed from those bulging biceps. What the tests hadn’t answered was the primary question: Which drug had put him into the coma?
    All the usual medical steps had been taken. Despite a treatment of glucose, Narcan, and thiamine, he hadn’t awakened. The only therapeutic strategy left was supportive: maintain his blood pressure, breathe for him, keep his heart beating. The rest was up to the patient.
    “You have no history at all?” asked Kat. “Nothing about what he shot up? Where he got it from?”
    “Not a thing. His parents are in the dark. They had no idea their kid was a junkie. That’s probably why he did it in the car. So they wouldn’t know about it.”
    “I’ve got two women in the morgue. Bothwith the same biphasic peak on gas chromatography. Like your man.”
    Dietz sighed. “Terrific. Another wonder drug hits our streets.”
    “When will your final